This study examines two psychological variables that could erode journalistic objectivity--the reporter's attitude toward his source and his expectation of future meetings with the source. Seventy student reporters were randomly assigned to conditions by instructions contained on assignment sheets. The hypotheses tested were that a positive…

This book attempts to show how the relationship between the American daily press and other social institutions determines the press's definition of news, where it seeks news, and how that news is presented. Chapter 1 discusses news as a force of information, examines news as a sociological problem, and describes the difficulty of defining news.…

Behavioral research suggests that communication between two individuals is affected by such factors as their orientation toward a topic, the importance of the topic, and interpersonal attraction. Seven hypotheses were formulated to determine if these factors--originally discovered in a discussion setting--were operative in an information-seeking…

This study sought to determine the perceptions of U.S daily newspaper publishers, editors, and education reporters regarding the desirability and feasibility of three approaches to increasing education news coverage: increased traditional local emphasis on education news coverage by daily newspapers, expanded wire service coverage of education,…

This study investigated the priorities for coverage of law enforcement news, of three groups: 146 citizens from the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area, 60 of the 68 police officers serving their communities, and 33 media personnel from the area. Subjects from all three groups were asked to rank stories about law enforcement in terms of their…

This dissertation is a descriptive, comparative study of press-government relationships in the 34 nations of independent Black Africa south of the Sahara. Excluded from consideration are territories under European administration and those nations that have white minority governments. The 34 sovereign states are analyzed and systematically…

The objective of this study was to contribute a quantitative aspect to the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press which will make possible explanation and prediction of relationships between key elements of society and news-opinion media. The 31 tenets of the Social Responsibility Theory were isolated and categorized. Using these tenets, an…